Hans van der Maarel

Posted 12 December 2005 - 05:14 AM

Hans van der Maarel

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Hmmm... The 'cartographic dictionary' by the Dutch Cartographic Association comes up with a blank... (it has Dutch, English, French and German translations of many cartographic expressions, but both Freistellung and Schriftfreistelling have no English translation).

Kartograph

Posted 12 December 2005 - 05:20 AM

Kartograph

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Thanks Hans!

Elsevier published a two volume "Lexikon der Kartographie und Geomatik(i.g. Encyclopedia of Cartography and Geomatics)" 2002, which has the english translation for every entry; guess which one is missing .

Kartograph

Posted 12 December 2005 - 07:04 AM

Kartograph

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I think Babelfish got it right, but not for cartography. Freistellen can mean exempt, for example for a special kind of work. But although the same word it comes from a whole different angle. It can also mean: to let someone decide on their own. Phew, why didn´t our ancestors settle for a world language?

Hans, I guess we have to wait for the native speakers to solve our problem.

Dennis McClendon

Posted 12 December 2005 - 10:23 AM

(I'm smiling as I think of some bearded Doktor-Professor stepping to the high chalkboard in the lecture hall of the technische Universität to start this lesson)

We just call it an "outline" or a "halo" around the text. Somewhat confusingly, FreeHand calls it an "Inline Effect," but typographically I always understood that to be a slightly different concept. In the old film days, we might also have talked about "making a fatty" or "making a skinny," the various film duplicates required to create this effect.

One of my clients just calls it "magic," and uses it as a verb. as in "please magic the Kedzie station name."

Kartograph

Posted 12 December 2005 - 10:46 AM

(I'm smiling as I think of some bearded Doktor-Professor stepping to the high chalkboard in the lecture hall of the technische Universität to start this lesson)

Don´t laugh! That´s the way how I learned it! No beard, though. How come your german is so good?

So what you are saying is: there is no word for the concept as a whole, but several words for the specific techniques used. From those one could derive a noun and thus everybody knew what the other one is talking about. Magic as a verb is funny .

DaveB

Posted 12 December 2005 - 11:02 AM

So what you are saying is: there is no word for the concept as a whole, but several words for the specific techniques used.

Halo or outline would probably be the most common terms for a solid color around the text. Halo is used in ESRI products. (although, I just looked it up in the ESRI Press Dictionary of GIS Terminology and it's not in there) Masking is a term used in ESRI products for the effect of not showing some features close to text. For example, having contour lines not draw underneath contour labels, but still show hillshade or polygon colors.

Dennis McClendon

Posted 12 December 2005 - 11:15 AM

So what you are saying is: there is no word for the concept as a whole, but several words for the specific techniques used.

I would say to the students: "you need to separate the placenames from the background. Use FreeHand's "Inline Effect" to place a white outline around the letters, giving the text a halo effect, so it will float above the background." The next week I might tell the forgetful student "you still need to halo this text."

I hope that clarifies the difference between the method, the effect, the goal, and the technical term.

As for my German, you are too kind. I studied three years at the Goethe-Institut in Chicago as an adult, but found that languages are best learned by the young. Of course, in North America I have much more chance to practice my Spanish than my German!

Matthew Hampton

Posted 12 December 2005 - 01:43 PM

I translated the german wikipedia page with Sherlock (Mac) and was returned the following.

"The term exemption one names a removing from disturbing drawing
sections of the card in the boundary region and background of a
outstanding card item in cartography around its legibility by
preservation of its clear outline to ensure. In particular writing
items and signatures are released, if a equivalent or little
contrasting background would worsen the recognizability. The exemption
can take place also via outlining the outstanding item. The item e.g.
a letter in a signature, receives then an edge contrasting to the
writing colour."

I don't think our language has a single word for that concept - however this might be the forum to invent one. How about "deobfuscate." ;-)

As in... "Today class, we are going to learn how to deobfuscate annotation by applying a halo or outline to the text objects."
__
matthew

Matthew Hampton

Posted 12 December 2005 - 05:37 PM

I think "Frei," means "free" and “stellung” means "position." One translation for "friestellung" is "exemption."

In America, I'm pretty sure we call this ancient, pre-digital photocomposition technique a "knockout." Type is usually positioned on a separate overlay that prints over the composite. If you knock out the composite background directly behind the type, the type is "free" or "exempt" from the background and keeps its color and integrity when it overprints. "Friestellung" seems to mean the technique of dropping out the background, including a slight buffer zone following the contour the type, so that the type stands free of the background and is more legible.

You could also call it something more descripitve and literal like "free standing" type or "background free" type.